oh what a ball of fun these cars are.. I knew going in I was going to have some things to fix. I mean why else would such a beautiful car from 2000 on with under 150k go for under 1500$

so lets see.. I've replaced wheel bearings, shocks and struts, tires, brakes and rotors, ignition coils, played the game of cat and mouse with several fuses and lights only to have them burn out again, bought the part to replace my cvvt solenoid only to find it was the mirrored pattern intake solenoid not the exhaust which my car apparently doesn't have. and now where I am at is transmission issues.

so my transmission had too much fluid in it when i first got it so i took some out at the time.. for a while i had no issues. then out of nowhere it started getting funky. it intermittently drops into a dash from drive and you can feel it happen then after that it has a very hard time with the lower gears. If i stop at a light and then start out it take some momentum to finally get going.. like starting out in 2nd or 3rd gear in a manual. I can physically shift it to L but when i shift up into the next it drops in hard. I can shut the car off and back on and it will reset it.. the gears come back and it will either continue about just fine or do the same thing again.

I brought it to INS in easton, pa a supposedly reputable place and they didn't gouge me on a diagnostic but did give me the run around with a parts car to buy that had just come in. they told me i needed my trans replaced. If that was the case I had planned on doing the work with my friend who is a mechanic. I don't have the money for that nor do I really want to go and do all that work. after a lot of research and internet searching.. I've found there are a lot of damn issues with this aisen trans and just so happens when you look at prices across the internet that this years are among the most expensive to replace. I also read about servo update cover which I haven't yet done because I then found a video on the pnp switch that mentioned the dash gear indication and thought that yes this sounds like its exactly what is going on.. my car can't figure out what gear its in when it falls into this dash mode. when I shut it off it resets. cool.

got a new certified volvo pnp switch.. replaced it and when i good my old one out and turned the crank in it..... well lets just say it sounded crunchy. clearly that must have been why it was doing what its doing. well not i'm two days into the new switch. first test drive.. starts out good. everything shifts.. seems like its a bit smoother for awhile... computer is working to relearn. then bam... dash mode. shut it off and restart it.. get it all the way back home without it going into dash again. last night went for a bit of a longer drive... all throughout the drive i was fighting this dash mode. sometimes it would take longer to fall into it others it would go for awhile before it would actually do it.

well i'm at a bit of a loss.. im getting really torn on this car. I've sunk a lot of time and money into it and also a lot of knowledge as to the ins and outs. i love the look of it and the way it drives when it's not giving me issues but is it ever going to get better or am I always going to be chasing this dream that's never a possible reality. now I know from here if I do continue to pursue fixing this problem i could still try a few things before i replace the whole tranny. i can still slowly flush the fluid though I don't think that would take care of the gear issue other than just making the over a bit smoother. since i replaced the pnp switch i could get a trans software update but they quoted me around 200$ I'm tight on funds and a rip off if you ask me considering software updates in general should be free. its your faulty systems that got us to where we are and I own your product. if it runs on computers that need updating then you should provide the updates free of charge. and the update isn't even a sure fix. i still could try to servo update.. its fairly inexpensive. after that what I've read is the solenoids or valve body.

could it possibly be the trans computer module since it drops to dash mode?

any ideas would be helpful.. i don't wanna give up but can't keep throwing money away

 

dash mode? are you referring to limp mode with a dash warning message? Did you have the car scanned for transmission codes? BTW, when you installed the PNP did you use a tool and follow the procedure for aligning it?